r some time at
least, I will give you a piece of advice. If you fall _in_ with a consort,
don't fall _out_ with her, and make a distant v'y'ge a cruise for an
enemy, but come to tarms, and work in company: lay for lay; and make fair
weather of what can't be helped."

The men on board the sloop laughed at this speech, while those on board
the schooner wondered. To Roswell Gardiner and his people the allusions
were an enigma, and the former muttered something about the stranger's
being a dunce, as he descended from the rigging, and gave some orders to
prepare to receive the boat.

"The chap belongs to the Hole," rejoined the master of the schooner, "and
all them Vineyard fellows fancy themselves better blue-jackets than the
rest of mankind: I suppose it must be because their island lies further
out to sea than anything we have here inside of Montauk."

Thus ended the communications with the stranger. The sloop glided away
before a light south wind, and, favoured by an ebb tide, soon rounded the
spit of sand that shelters the anchorage; and, hauling up to the eastward,
she went on her way towards Holmes' Hole. The skipper was a relative of
half of those who were interested in fitting out the rival Sea Lion, and
had volunteered to obtain the very information he took with him, knowing
how acceptable it would be to those at home. Sooth to say, a deep but wary
excitement prevailed on the Vineyard, touching not only the
sealing-islands, but also in respect to the buried treasure. The
information actually possessed by the relations of the deceased mariner
was neither very full nor very clear. It consisted principally of sayings
of Daggett, uttered during his homeward-bound passage, and transmitted by
the master of the brig to him of the sloop in the course of conferences
that wore away a long summer's afternoon, as the two vessels lay becalmed
within a hundred fathoms of each other. These sayings, however, had been
frequent and intelligible. All men like to deal in that which makes them
of importance; and the possession of his secrets had just the effect on
Daggett's mind that was necessary to render him boastful. Under such
impulses his tongue had not been very guarded; and facts leaked out which,
when transmitted to his native island, through the medium of half a dozen
tongues and as many fancies, amounted to statements sufficient to fire the
imaginations of a people much duller than those of Martha's Vineyard.
Accustomed to